Condo Association Management Blog

What state are you in? What is the residency profile of your owners i.e. are they all permanent or are there a % of seasonal residents? Whay typr of cable will be installed fibre optics?

I am in the middle of siging a 10 year contact with Comcast, for the "Home Run Lines", which are the cable lines that run from the interface down through our common areas to feed each unit. But not the lines inside the units. Comcast is willing to pay us !150.00 per unit up front for the exclusive use of thier lines. Our Attorney's tells us that signing this agreement does not have any effect on the future should we want to change providers. The new provider would have to run their own "Home Run Lines". In our case the check will be close to $25,000.00. Our Attorney's are still talking with Comcast, there were a few things that they wanted out of the contrac. This contrack has nothing to do with the pricing or "Bulk" contract for the Phones, internet, or TV, that is a seperate contract.

Please be aware that the FCC has a law against exclusivity contracts for video services.  
 
 
 
FCC-07-189 reads in part: "(a) Prohibition. No cable operator or other provider of MVPD service subject to 47 USC section 548 shall enforce or execute any provision in a contract that grants to it the exclusive right to provide any video programming service (alone or in combination with other services) to a MDU (multiple dwelling unit, such as a condo). All such exclusivity clauses are null and void.

My condo is in Michigan. Cable comp. are now allowed to enforce a 10 yr. clause, according to Mich. law. Comcast tries anyway.

Donna, 
 
 
 
Did you mean to say, cable companys are NOT allowed to enforce a 10 yr clause according to MI law? The excusivity clause is prohibited by federal law which trumps any state, local or HOA law.

Sorry, I posted this - Colorado. It is not an exclusive contract. The phone company provides internet, phone and dish. The cable company provides service to to most of the units in this high rise.

sorry wrong post

Will, 
 
 
 
Just because the cable co does not provide service for tv,phone and dish does not mean there is no exclusivity clause. The exclusivity clause would be in the contract stating the cable co has the exclusive right to contract for cable services and that is what is against the law. IMO, the HOA's attorney should be consulted to determine if requiring a contract for longer than 1 year would be a breach of the exclusivity law.

Thank you Mary for the info. Our Board wanted to do this and we said we did not want to pay for an exclusive cable contract because if a person wanted to use another company, they would have to pay for both the contract through HOA fees and then again for their choice of cable company.

Whilst the FCC has prohibited exculsive contracts they considered but did not prohibit 'bulk agreements'. They recognized that this means that owners who do not wish to receive service via a bulk agreement have to pay twice. On balance the FCC considered such agreements were in consumers interest as rates were lower.

One problem we ran into with a bulk cable agreement was when we had a large number of owners not paying their monthly fees, which included basic cable. Local cable company would not "disconnect" non-paying or even vacant units. 
 
Association threatened, and came very close to bankruptcy. This, along with very good negotiations by association attorney got cable company's attention.  
 
Having also built condos, I would suggest runnng away from a bulk cable contract. Talk to an electrician about running your home runs. They CAN do it, regardless of what the cable company says, and can usually do it cheaper. You can then give owners the option to pick whatever cable service they want.

The question of vacant units is of great importance.Along with many others I am a seasonal resident in Florida, 75% of the owners in my HOA are only resident for an average of 5 months yet, unlike direct consumers, they cannot put their service 'on vaction'. The HOA ends up paying MORE under the bulk agreement than a similar group of direct subscribers.  
 
Florida Statute does state that owners living in Condos must not pay more than a direct subscriber unfortunately this does not apply to HOA.  
 
The FCC needs to look at this again as many owners receiving service under a bulk arrangement would be better off dealing direct but, at present cannot do so unless they pay twice.

My company specializes in negotiating and implementing Right of Easement and Revenue Sharing Agreements between Cable TV providers and multifamily property owners, including HOAs and COAs. We represent 400 properties and have an in house attorney that ensures the agreement has the property owner/Association's best interests in mind. We average $500 over the life of the agreement, of which on average $200 is paid up front, with the rest in an ongoing revenue share. Feel free to email me if you want to explore this further. We don't charge anything to negotiate the deals and get them in writing. We only earn our fee if the proposal is accepted, and we only get paid after the property owner gets paid. I'm happy to discuss it in detail and provide client references. Neil

I live in CT, Charter, cable company wants a 5 year contract woth Home Owners Association. We are unhappy with lousy service, how can we replace Charter?

Tully, we specialize in negotiating Right of Easement and Bulk Service Contracts on behalf of Associations. We are not affiliated with any Cable TV provider, so we can obtain a proposal for your HOA from Charter, as well as Charters local competitors, so that the Board can consider all of thier options and get the best overall deal. Send me an email to neil.c@ccgconsult.com and we can talk off line and I'll explain the details.

I am an attorney with an AV rating by Martindale Hubbell and over thirty (30) years experience in negotiating right of entry agreements between property owners and service providers. I have represented some of the largest developers and condo associations in the US in these agreements. Also some of the smallest. I specialize in litigation arising out of inside wiring and related telecommunications issues. My email is wjm@wjmesq.com.

Question:  
 
Can the HOA continue to allocate funds for a service no longer provided?  
 
My monthly HOA dues continue to have a line item of 29.99 for cable TV that was discontinued in February.  
 
HOA reply: 
 
Were still going to collect the funds “just in case we decide to once again provide the service ,” ” if not, monies collected will go into the Reserve Fund.”  
 
Is fluffy accounting acceptable and can the HOA being audited for questionable line items like this 
 

@ lucille 
 
If the line item was specifically to pay for services that are no longer available, NO, NO, NO 
 
Cable is a Service and has nothing to do with the upkeep of the property which is what the Reserve fund is for. The cable company is providing the upkeep for their connections, not your HOA. 
 
Our HOA was thinking about this, but after researching it, it is a mess to even become involved in it and is forcing people to use and pay for a service they may not even want. 
 
T 
 

Lucille, 
 
 
 
Are you saying that you are paying an additional $29.99 for cable each month, in addition to your regular HOA assessments? If that is the case then the HOA should stop collecting this fee immediately since you no longer have that service. That would be quite a large increase to your regular assessments and possiblly illegal if there are limitations on assessment increases. But, as long as a majority of the members don't complain don't expect any changes.